Yemen Aid Shipments Still Blocked By Saudi-Led Coalition: Red Cross

A Houthi fighter mans a weapon on a patrol truck as he guards the site of a demonstration against Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, in Sanaa April 3, 2015. Violence has been spreading across Yemen since last year, when Iran-backed Shi'ite Houthi fighters seized the capital Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition has hit the rebels with air strikes over the past week. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday three shipments of aid and medical staff it is trying to send to Yemen were still blocked, despite appeals to the Saudi-led military coalition which controls Yemeni air space and ports.

The ICRC is seeking security guarantees for two planes to Sanaa, one with medical supplies for up to 1,000 wounded people and a second with 30 tonnes of medical and water sanitation supplies, as well as a boat to take a surgical team to Aden.

The aid organization on Tuesday accused the Saudi-led coalition, which is waging a 10-day-old campaign of air strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen, of preventing aid deliveries.

"Our supplies are still blocked," spokeswoman Sitara Jabeen said. "The situation is getting worse, every passing hour people are dying in Yemen and we need to bring this in urgently".

She was speaking ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting called by Russia to discuss a humanitarian pause in the air strikes.

U.N. relief coordinator Valerie Amos said on Thursday 519 people have been killed in the fighting in the past two weeks and nearly 1,700 wounded, without specifying whether those figures included combatants.

Another emergency medical aid group, Medecins Sans Frontieres, has also said that airport closures and naval restrictions in Yemen have prevented it from sending in medical teams and supplies.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Dominic Evans, editing by William Hardy)